Free Conquering Kilmarni by Hugh Cave Page A

with the paybill here?"
    "Well . . ."
    "You owe Zackie that, wouldn't you say?"
    The corporal thought about it, then turned to Zackie. "All right, boy," he said. "But if you are the one who's been doing the thieving around here, you'll have me to deal with in the end, and you'll wish you'd told the truth, I'm warning you." His hand fell away from Zackie's arm, letting the boy step back.
    Peter half expected Zackie to turn and run then, before Corporal Buckley could change his mind. But instead of running, the boy stood motionless for a few seconds, gazing up at the tall man's face, then turned slowly to direct his gaze at the table.
    "Mr. Devon," he said, "me thank you, suh." Then, looking down at the ground, he walked slowly across the yard and up the driveway, Mongoose beside him, while everyone in the yard watched.
    Peter first wanted to leap up and run after them, then to call out to Zackie to wait. But he felt that Zackie would not like it. So he simply sat there with his father and Mr. Campbell until the boy was out of sight.
    The unreal silence ended then, and the murmuring began again, swelling to a peak as the workers talked excitedly about what had happened. Mr. Devon gathered up the paybill books and motioned Corporal Buckley to follow him to the house.
    Peter waited for the yard to clear before he left the garage. Climbing the veranda steps, he hesitated at the top. The big double doors were open at that hour to catch the warmth and brightness of the late-afternoon sun, and he saw his father and the policeman seated in the living room. They stopped talking and looked at him as he approached the threshold.
    "Will it be all right if I come in?" he said.
    The sudden frown on the corporal's face probably meant no, but Mr. Devon was the one who answered. "I think you should," he said with a nod. "Come and sit down, please."
    What interested Peter for the next hour or so was not so much what his father and Corporal Buckley said. It was the slow but steady change of expression on his dad's face while they were talking.
    Mr. Devon had not willingly become involved with Zackie Leonard's troubles. Peter knew that. Probably he was still fighting it. But the man talking to Corporal Buckley in the Kilmarnie living room was not quite the same Walter Devon who had come home full of despair and loneliness the day after visiting the cemetery where Mom and Mark were buried. It might be against his will that he was changing, but a change was taking place.
    Mr. Devon told the corporal about Zackie and the pig, filling in some details of what had happened. He told how Zackie was afraid of his father, yet felt he had a duty to look after the man whenever he could.
    The corporal talked mostly about the beginnings of Zackie's troubles. "Before I came to Rainy Ridge I was stationed in Seaforth," he said, "and I knew Merrick Leonard when he lived there with Zackie's mother. Her name is Elaine Grant."
    "You knew the boy's mother, Corporal?"
    The tall man nodded. "I knew her. She is a good woman, younger than Leonard. When I was her friend, she was keeping house for a lady on a sugar plantation, and it was like going to school again. I mean, the lady taught her to read and write better, and to speak good English. But then Elaine took up with Merrick Leonard—he worked on the plantation—and went to live with him, and had Zackie."
    "And then realized Leonard was no good, and left him?"
    "And went to Kingston to find work, leaving the baby with her own mother. I'm sure she had no idea what would happen when she did that, Mr. Devon."
    "Do you know where she is now?" Mr. Devon asked.
    Peter had been trying to do two things at once: listen to what his father and Corporal Buckley were saying, and think about Zackie. Rain had begun to fall again and he was remembering how the Jamaican boy had walked up the driveway with his head down, as if he were walking out of their lives forever. With the rain pounding the roof, he wondered where Zackie was